EightBlack.

I recieved an open letter from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google overnight.

It was adressed to all of Google’s Adsense publishers.

And it was clearly a part of what is sure to be a massive campaign underway by the worlds most successful technology company.

In essence, the US government wants to step in and totally control content and delivery on the internet.

Schmidt opens with:

There’s a debate heating up in Washington, DC on something called “net neutrality” – and the outcome of this debate may very well impact your business. Therefore, we are taking the unprecedented steps of calling your attention to this looming crisis and asking you to get involved.

Sometime in the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill would give the big phone and cable companies the power to choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.

…the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all broadband Internet access, want the power to choose who gets onto the high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build tollbooths to block the on-ramps for those whom they don’t want to compete with and who can’t pay this new Internet tax. Money and monopoly, not ideas and independence, will be the currency of their Internet.

Under the proposed “pay-to-play” system, small- and medium-sized businesses will be placed at an automatic disadvantage to their larger competitors. Those who cannot afford the new Internet tax – or who want to compete directly with the phone and cable companies – will be marginalized by slower Internet access that will inevitably make their sites less accessible, and therefore less appealing.

If the US government get’s its way (and I really cannot see it happening), then THIS does have massive implications for every business that has a website and for anybody who uses the internet.

I’d go so far to say that Google would bet the ranch on this.

They’re already buying up bandwith in the US as fast as they can and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them make a play for a major telco - because its the “last mile” in telco land that is often the hardest to control, and in many cases, the most profitable.

If this “internet tax” gets any traction at all, it will have a ripple effect throughout the rest of the western world.

And the face of the internet, as we all know it, will be as dramatically changed as when a small little outfit called Google posted it’s first search box just over 8 years ago.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 8:04 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.